Today’s Headlines

Got those taxes done? No? Well, you can be forgiven if you need to download this 1040 form right now and get those unreimbursed business expenses added up on Schedule C. But if you've filed your taxes, why not check out the news from the weekend:

Good morning! The L train repairs won't start for a few more weeks, but the MTA is going to suspend weeknight service from April 15-26, amNY reported. Not so good morning.

We were very sorry to hear that a 4-year-old was reportedly hit by a cyclist in Riverside Park on Monday.

Yesterday was the slowest transportation news day in months. It was so slow that we're going to lead this page with our news-free exchange with a clearly uninspired Mayor de Blasio yesterday over congestion pricing exemptions:

Mayor de Blasio shook up his senior communications staff on Monday (Politico, NYDN, NY Post), which is what you do when you're running for president — which the Post editorial board thinks is the most laughable thing it has ever heard.

We want to start by thanking volunteers and Transportation Alternatives for Sunday's memorial ride to mark the second anniversary of the death of Gelacio Reyes, the father of three and delivery worker who was killed on then-unprotected 43rd Avenue in Queens in 2017. Reyes's death remains an open wound for his friends and family, but it did leave a lasting legacy: the roadway now features a protected bike lane — the result of activism in the face of a Sunnyside community board that preferred on-street car storage to safety for residents who chose to get around by bike. Kudos to the mayor and the DOT for overruling the board and bringing sanity to that little slice of heaven in Queens.

To paraphrase the Ramones, "DDC did a job on me." Yes, it's time for our latest Flushing Avenue update. As we reported in September, the transformation of Flushing Avenue from a terribly unsafe place for cyclists into an oasis with a two-way, fully protected bike lane, was supposed to be done by this month.

The big news yesterday was broken by Dana Rubinstein at Politico: Mayor de Blasio had thrown out his own Department of Transportation's plan for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in favor of creating a panel of experts to come up with something better. We likened it to what Gov. Cuomo did with his own experts' plan for the L train fix. For a split second, we worried if we'd gone too far. And then the Twittersphere confirmed that maybe we didn't go far enough!

That was fast. Roughly one day after New York State made history by setting up a congestion pricing cordon around Manhattan's central business district, the backlash began. We mentioned it in our story about the coming carveout crisis, but the Daily News's Clayton Guse devoted a whole story to a new Quinnipiac poll showing New Yorkers don't have much confidence that the tolls will work.